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Buck naked: A &
E, PBS look for profits the old-fashioned way: Selling sex
http://www2.bostonherald.com/entertainment/television/tvco02052002.htm by Monica Collins Tuesday, February 5, 2002
Sex sells during sweeps. Hard-core, soft-core, any core.
And two of TV's most prestigious brokers of programming stoop to pander during
this important February ratings period. PBS' ``Frontline,'' the investigative documentary series produced at WGBH
(Ch. 2), presents ``American Porn'' on Thursday at 9 p.m. The film concludes
that pornography, a multibillion-dollar business, has become a mainstream
moneymaker as big corporations such as Marriott, AT & T and Yahoo! reap
profits from selling smut.
To prove the point, there is ``Inside the Playboy Mansion,'' a two-hour romp
presented by cable's venerable A & E, airing Sunday at 8 p.m. The
voluptuous, celebratory special, in which Playboy's affable founder Hugh Hefner
exposes his overexposed lifestyle, includes much skin. For A & E, the
raunchy program is a departure from the channel's usual starchy fare of
``Biography,'' BBC dramas and sober news documentaries.
There is a reason sex sells - because we watch.
``Inside the Playboy Mansion'' is mind-numbing froth, deliciously diverting.
And ``American Porn,'' a journey to the dark, exploitative side of the so-called
Playboy ``philosophy,'' is gritty and compelling, even if it serves as a grim
excuse to throw out some flesh to the masses.
``Frontline'' goes behind the scenes of a seamy industry, so far behind that
even the documentary crew gets squeamish while recording the making of a porn
film about rape.
Pornographer Lizzie Borden and her husband, Rob Black, are making the graphic
film, which is about a woman who gets raped and slaughtered by thugs after her
car breaks down, on a $20,000 budget. Borden and Black expect to make millions
through sales on their Web site.
They have no shame about what they're doing. When asked if the woman, a
friend of Lizzie's named Veronica, will really get hit, Borden says, ``Yeah.
She's really going to get hit. She likes it. It's good. Sometimes, it makes you
horny when you're getting hit.'' Lizzie claims she will take Veronica out for
dinner and shopping when filming is done.
As ``Frontline'' cameras capture the gruesome action, the reality of the
scene is overwhelming. ``We're here because this is one of the places where porn
is now regularly pushing the limits,'' says the narrator. ``But this was more
than we bargained for. And while it appeared that what was happening was legally
consensual, we left. The incident, though, caused us to wonder not just about
the content but about the human cost.''
That cost appears incalculable as young women are subjected to various
indignities and horrors, with prices escalating for particular sex acts.
Bruce Taylor, a former Justice Department attorney who prosecuted hundreds of
obscenity cases, says the government's pursuit of pornographers slackened during
the Clinton years. He senses, however, there may be a turnaround with the Bush
administration: ``I think they (pornographers) sort of know that this President
Bush, George W. Bush, and Attorney General Ashcroft, I mean, they're about as
serious as a heart attack.''
Taylor says Ashcroft already has met with former obscenity prosecutors to
find out what kinds of cases have been pursued in the past.
``Frontline'' suggests pornography is so entrenched in our culture that the
smut might be hard to root out. The documentary reports AT & T makes a mint
from X-rated movies peddled through its cable systems. In Marriott hotels, where
guests can choose the night's movie in the privacy of their room, the porno
choices sell out. On the Internet - even respectable sites such as Yahoo! - the
sky's the limit, reportedly.
Or on A & E's ``Inside the Playboy Mansion,'' during which Hugh Hefner
introduces us to his six blond girlfriends who cavort on his bed and vie for his
attention. They all have names like Krystle or Bambi.
And Hef tries to seduce us into believing that, for a 75-year-old separated
guy, having a litter of girlfriends is all quite normal. He insists he's living
the luckiest life on earth, after trying the marriage and kids route. Now, he's
really happiest giving giant parties. TV stars Bill Maher and Drew Carey, two of
the Playboy Mansion's most frequent partygoers, say how glad they are that Hef
is back to the wild life.
On the surface, it all looks like such fun until you consider the eventual
toll on humanity. Everyone has to look beyond the bodies to the souls - even
during sweeps. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
